Quotes about illusion
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“Writing turns you into somebody who's always wrong. The illusion that you may get it right someday is the perversity that draws you on.”

Philip Roth book American Pastoral

Source: American Pastoral

Drawing

“The assumption that animals are without rights and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality.”

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher

Source: The Basis of Morality

Universe, Animals

“Sometimes, one wants to have the illusion that one is making ones own life, out of one's own resources.”

Zadie Smith book NW

Source: NW

Life

“Reason is the illusion of reality”

Hazrat Inayat Khan (1882–1927) Indian Sufi

Reality

“Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be obtained only by someone who is detached.”

Simone Weil (1909–1943) French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist

Reality

“But what I wanted back had never really been there. He was a temporary illusion, a mirage of water after walking in the desert. I had made him up. And he could have killed me. You've got to stop the ride sometimes. Stop it and get off.”

Deb Caletti (1963) American writer

Source: The Secret Life of Prince Charming

Water

“Writing gives you the illusion of control, and then you realize it's just an illusion, that people are going to bring their own stuff into it.”

David Sedaris (1956) American author

People

“The straight line, a respectable optical illusion which ruins many a man.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

“But that afternoon he asked himself, with his infinite capacity for illusion, if such pitiless indifference might not be a subterfuge for hiding the torments of love.”

Gabriel García Márquez book Love in the Time of Cholera

Source: Love in the Time of Cholera

Love, Indifference

“It's easy to be a naive idealist. It's easy to be a cynical realist. It's quite another thing to have no illusions and still hold the inner flame.”

Marie-Louise von Franz (1915–1998) Swiss psychologist and scholar

“Define yourself radically as one beloved by God. This is the true self. Every other identity is illusion.”

Brennan Manning (1934–2013) writer, American Roman Catholic priest and United States Marine

Source: Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging

God

“The illusions it had woven for me had taken place only in my head. The battle had been invisible to the naked eye, but the hardest ones are.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Shadowfever

“Who knows what true loneliness is — not the conventional word, but the naked terror? To the lonely themselves it wears a mask. The most miserable outcast hugs some memory or some illusion.”

Joseph Conrad book Under Western Eyes

Pt. I, ch. 2
Under Western Eyes (1911)

Memory, Loneliness

“The public wants work which flatters its illusions.”

Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880) French writer (1821–1880)

“What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists? In that case, I definitely overpaid for my carpet.”

Woody Allen Without Feathers

"Selections from the Allen Notebooks".
Without Feathers (1975)

“We're all travelling heavy with illusions.”

Sherman Alexie book The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven

Source: The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven

Travel

“There is so much more to this world then outward appearances. Our society basks in the illusion of normalcy every day, and hides from the truth every night.”

Amber Benson (1977) actress from the United States

Source: Accursed

Truth, World, Appearance, Night

“Perfection' is man's ultimate illusion. It simply doesn't exist in the universe…. If you are a perfectionist, you are guaranteed to be a loser in whatever you do.”

David D. Burns (1942) American psychiatrist

Universe, Perfection

“The key to seeing the world's soul, and in the process wakening our own, is to get over the confusion by which we think that fact is real and imagination is illusion.”

Thomas Moore (1779–1852) Irish poet, singer and songwriter

Source: Original Self: Living with Paradox and Originality

World, Soul, Imagination, Thinking

“How disturbing it is that our illusions are often our most important beliefs.”

Hanif Kureishi (1954) English playwright, screenwriter, novelist

Source: Intimacy: das Buch zum Film von Patrice Chéreau

“When illusions are shattered by truth, talent is set free.”

Gillian Rubinstein Tales of the Otori

Source: Across the Nightingale Floor

Truth

“As time goes by, as time goes by, the whip-crack of the years, the precipice of illusions, the ravine that swallows up all human endeavour except the struggle to survive.”

Roberto Bolaño book By Night in Chile

Source: By Night in Chile

Time

“One of the illusions of life is that the present hour is not the critical, decisive hour. Write it on your hear that every day is the best day of the year.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Life, Decision

“Religion is a system of wishful illusions together with a disavowal of reality, such as we find nowhere else but in a state of blissful hallucinatory confusion. Religion's eleventh commandment is "Thou shalt not question."”

Sigmund Freud book The Future of an Illusion

Source: 1920s, The Future of an Illusion (1927)

Religion, Question, Reality

“We're hallucinating. And that's what this world is: a mass hallucination, where fear seems more real than love. Fear is an illusion. Our craziness, paranoia, anxiety and trauma are literally all imagined.”

Marianne Williamson (1952) American writer

Source: A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles"

Love, World, Fear, Imagination

“I had no illusions about love anymore. It came, it went, it left casualties or it didn't. People weren't meant to be together forever, regardless of what the songs say.”

Sarah Dessen (1970) American writer

Love, People

“On the meridian of time, there is no injustice: there is only the poetry of motion creating the illusion of truth and drama.”

Henry Miller book Tropic of Cancer

Source: Tropic of Cancer

Truth, Time

“No other human being, no woman, no poem or music, book, or painting can replace alcohol in its power to give man the illusion of real creation.”

Marguerite Duras (1914–1996) French writer and film director

Alcohol, Books, Music, Painting

“Perhaps most people in the world aren’t trying to be free, Kafka. They just think they are. It’s all an illusion. If they really were set free, most people would be in a real pickle. You’d better remember that. People actually prefer not being free?”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore

People, World, Thinking

“53. 'We mainly suppose the experiential quality to be an intrinsic quality of the physical object'-this is the so-called systematic illusion of color. Perhaps it is also that of love. But I am not willing to go there-not just yet. I believed in you.”

Maggie Nelson (1973) American writer

Source: Bluets

Love, Color

“Liking other people is an illusion we have to cherish in ourselves if we are to live in society.”

John Fowles book The Magus

Source: The Magus

People

“Is not this world an illusion? And yet it fools everybody.”

Angela Carter (1940–1992) English novelist

World, Fools

“You've seen the sun flatten and take strange shapes just before it sinks in the ocean. Do you have to tell yourself every time that it's an illusion caused by atmospheric dust and light distorted by the sea, or do you simply enjoy the beauty of it?”

John Steinbeck book Sweet Thursday

Source: Sweet Thursday

Beauty, Light, Time, Sun

“Hope is not an illusion.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess

Source: Clockwork Princess

Hope

“Dream delivers us to dream, and there is no end to illusion.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson book Experience

1840s, Essays: Second Series (1844), Experience
Context: Dream delivers us to dream, and there is no end to illusion. Life is a train of moods like a string of beads, and, as we pass through them, they prove to be many-colored lenses which paint the world their own hue, and each shows only what lies in its focus.

Dreams

“.. he continues to cling to the forlorn hope that I will turn into one of those swooning females… and fling myself squeeling at him whenever anything happens. Like all men, he clings to his illusions.”

Elizabeth Peters The Last Camel Died at Noon

Source: The Last Camel Died at Noon

Men, Hope

“I've always preferred mythology to history. History is truth that becomes an illusion. Mythology is an illusion that becomes reality.”

Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, boxing manager and filmmaker

Truth, History, Reality

“Normal is an illusion. What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly.”

Charles Addams (1912–1988) Cartoonist

Flying

“There is no coincidence. Only the illusion of coincidence.”

Alan Moore (1953) English writer primarily known for his work in comic books

Source: V for Vendetta, Vol. III of X

“How strange when an illusion dies. It's as though you've lost a child.”

Judy Garland (1922–1969) actress, singer and vaudevillian from the United States

“The illusion that we understand the past fosters overconfidence in our ability to predict the future.”

Daniel Kahneman book Thinking, Fast and Slow

Source: Thinking, Fast and Slow

Understanding, Past, Future

“The two of you are getting downright chatty, aren't you, Ms. Lane? When did you last see him? what else did he tell you?
I'm asking the questions tonight.
If an illusion of control comforts you, Ms. Lane, by all means, cling to it.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Bloodfever

Question

“But he could not renounce his infinite capacity for illusion at the very moment he needed it most… he saw fireflies where there were none.”

Gabriel García Márquez book The General in His Labyrinth

Source: The General in His Labyrinth

“Katie smiled and turned away, knowing it wasn't an illusion or a figment of her imagination. She knew what she saw. She knew what she believed.”

Nicholas Sparks book Safe Haven

Source: Safe Haven

Smile, Imagination

“Routine feeds the illusion of safety…”

Christopher Moore book Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

Source: Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

“One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we have christened reality is an even greater illusion than the world of dreams.”

Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) Spanish artist

World, Dreams, Reality

“They are committing the greatest indignity human beings can inflict on one another: telling people who have suffered excruciating pain and loss that their pain and loss were illusions.”

Elie Wiesel book Night

Misattributed Source: Robert McAfee Brown https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_McAfee_Brown. Preface for the 25th anniversary edition of Night https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_%28book%29. Page v, Bantam Books paperback; 1982 reissue edition.

Pain, People, Suffering, Loss

“I fell victim to the temptation of every autobiographer, to the illusion that since the past exists only in one's memories and the words which strive vainly to encapsulate them, it is possible to create past events simply by saying they occurred.”

Salman Rushdie book Midnight's Children

Source: Midnight's Children

Memory, Past

“Where happiness was not a possibility, the illusion of it was always more important.”

Colum McCann Zoli

Source: Zoli

Happiness

“People who cling to their illusions find it difficult, if not impossible, to learn anything worth learning: a people under the necessity of creating themselves must examine everything, and soak up learning the way the roots of a tree soak up water.”

James Baldwin (1924–1987) (1924-1987) writer from the United States

People, Way, Tree, Learning

“Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Letter to Besso's family (March 1955) following the death of Michele Besso, as quoted in Disturbing the Universe (1979) by Freeman Dyson Ch. 17 "A Distant Mirror", p. 193 Sometimes misquoted as "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." 1950s Variant: "He has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. For us believing physicists, the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubborn illusion." Quoted in Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson (2008), p. 540 http://books.google.com/books?id=cdxWNE7NY6QC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA540#v=onepage&q&f=false. Variant: "Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That signifies nothing. For us believing physicists, the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion." Quoted in Albert Einstein: The Miracle Mind by Tabatha Yeatts (2007), p. 116 http://books.google.com/books?id=XiyyVYvQBKQC&lpg=PP1&pg=PT114#v=onepage&q&f=false. Variant: "In quitting this strange world he has once again preceded me by a little. That doesn't mean anything. For those of us who believe in physics, this separation between past, present, and future is only an illusion, however tenacious." Quoted in The Structure of Physics by Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker (1985), p. 288 http://books.google.com/books?id=DeexONN0zDgC&lpg=PR2&pg=PA288#v=onepage&q&f=false. Variant: "Now he has departed a little ahead of me from this quaint world. This means nothing. For us faithful physicists, the separation between past, present, and future has only the meaning of an illusion, though a persistent one." Quoted in Einstein and Religion by Max Jammer (2002), p. 161 http://books.google.com/books?id=TnCc1f1C25IC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA161#v=onepage&q&f=false. Variant: "Now he has preceded me by a little bit in his departure from this strange world as well. This means nothing. For those of us who believe in physics, the distinction between past, present, and future is only an illusion, however tenacious this illusion may be." Quoted in Einstein: A Biography by Jürgen Neff (2007), p. 402 http://books.google.com/books?id=B8K6n177ZwcC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA402#v=onepage&q&f=false

People, World, Past, Future

“Writing turns you into somebody who's always wrong. the illusion that you may get it right someday is the perversity that draws you on. What else could? As pathological phenomena go, it doesn't completely wreck your life.”

Philip Roth (1933–2018) American novelist

Life, Drawing

“The things that the novel does not say are necessarily more numerous than those it does say and only a special halo around what is written can give the illusion that you are reading also what is not written.”

Italo Calvino (1923–1985) Italian journalist and writer of short stories and novels

Reading

“We're all mad, the whole damned race. We're wrapped in illusions, delusions, confusions about the penetrability of partitions, we're all mad and in solitary confinement.”

William Golding book Darkness Visible

Source: Darkness Visible

Madness

“I have the nerve to walk my own way, however hard, in my search for reality, rather than climb upon the rattling wagon of wishful illusions.”

Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960) American folklorist, novelist, short story writer

Way, Search, Reality

“One realized all sorts of things. The value of an illusion, for instance, and that the shadow can be more important than the substance. All sorts of things.”

Jean Rhys (1890–1979) novelist from Dominica

Source: Quartet

“We create the illusions we need to go on.”

Libba Bray (1964) American teen writer

“The time comes when each of us has to give up as illusions the expectations which, in his youth, he pinned upon his fellow-men, and when he may learn how much difficulty and pain has been added to his life by their ill-will.”

Sigmund Freud book Civilization and Its Discontents

Source: Civilization and Its Discontents

Life, Men, Pain, Youth

“One sometimes weeps over one's illusions with as much bitterness as over a death.”

Guy De Maupassant book Une vie

Source: Une vie

Death

“I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content.”

Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) American author

"Queen of the Black Coast" (1934)
Source: Conan the Barbarian Omnibus -The Original Stories
Context: He shrugged his shoulders. "I have known many gods. He who denies them is as blind as he who trusts them too deeply. I seek not beyond death. It may be the blackness averred by the Nemedian skeptics, or Crom's realm of ice and cloud, or the snowy plains and vaulted halls of the Nordheimer's Valhalla. I know not, nor do I care. Let me live deep while I live; let me know the rich juices of red meat and stinging wine on my palate, the hot embrace of white arms, the mad exultation of battle when the blue blades flame and crimson, and I am content. Let teachers and priests and philosophers brood over questions of reality and illusion. I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content."

Love, Life

“In you is the illusion of each day.
You arrive like the dew to the cupped flowers.
You undermine the horizon with your absence.
Eternally in flight like the wave.”

Pablo Neruda book Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair

Source: Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair

Flowers

“The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must hold to this illusion even when he knows it is not true.”

John Steinbeck (1902–1968) American writer

New York Times (2 June 1969)

World

“The security light made me feel safe, though I knew that was an illusion. If there's light, you can just see what's coming for you a little more clearly.”

Charlaine Harris book From Dead to Worse

Source: From Dead to Worse

Feeling, Light

“In the beginning there was faith - which is childish; trust - which is vain; and illusion - which is dangerous.”

Elie Wiesel book Night

Source: Night

Faith

“As I've said, freedom is really an illusion. Anytime we think we have a real choice, it just means we haven't seen the shotgun aimed at our navel.”

Jeff Lindsay book Dexter Is Delicious

Source: Dexter Is Delicious

Thinking, Freedom

“There was pain, but there was also joy. It was in the tension between the two that life happened. Imperfect as it was, this world was real. Illusion was no substitute. I'd rather live a hard life of fact than a sweet life of lies.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Shadowfever

Life, Pain, World, Joy

“There was beauty in the idea of freedom, but it was an illusion. Every human heart was chained by love.”

Cassandra Clare book Lady Midnight

Source: Lady Midnight

Love, Beauty, Idea, Freedom

“Why do we call all our generous ideas illusions, and the mean ones truths?”

Edith Wharton book The House of Mirth

Source: The House of Mirth

Truth, Idea

“Illusion is Reality's coy lover who cheers him when he is grim. Illusion is cunning to his wisdom of ages, weet oblivion to his knowledge. A bounty to his lack. [Sabine]”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Kiss of a Demon King

Wisdom, Age, Lovers, Knowledge

“It is a melancholy illusion of those who write books and articles that the printed word survives. Alas, it rarely does.”

Eric Hobsbawm (1917–2012) British academic historian and Marxist historiographer

Source: How to Change the World: Reflections on Marx and Marxism

Books

“What a fool I was! and yet, in the sight of angels, are we any wiser as we grow older? It seems to me, only, that our illusions change as we go on; but, still, we are madmen all the same.”

J. Sheridan Le Fanu book In a Glass Darkly

Source: In a Glass Darkly

Fools, Angels, Change

“If life is an illusion it's a pretty painful one.”

Michel Houellebecq (1956) writer

Life, Pain

“Perhaps it is better to wake up after all, even to suffer, rather than to remain a dupe to illusions all one's life.”

Kate Chopin book The Awakening

The Awakening (1899)
Source: The Awakening, and Selected Stories
Context: The years that are gone seem like dreams -if one might go on sleeping and dreaming- but to wake up and find -oh! well! perhaps it is better to wake up after all, even to suffer, rather than to remain a dupe to illusions all ones life.

Life, Suffering